


not my forte

by orphan_account



Series: don't be sharp [2]
Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Music, Bad Music Puns, Band Fic, Crushes, Jaehwan is an idiot, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 11:43:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13703787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jaehwan likes to think he’s a very poetic person. But not when it comes to pretty boys, and especially not when it comes to Sewoon.





	not my forte

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shibecafe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shibecafe/gifts).



> the much-requested sequel to [looking for treble](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13571079), starring jaehwan and the piano boy

Jaehwan likes to think he’s a very poetic person. He writes most of the lyrics for Snakey and the Snakes’s songs, although everyone else likes to chip in and do a great job stealing his thunder. He’s a great people person; he works part-time telemarketing for an insurance firm, and he’s gotten about twenty old people to invest in life insurance which he thinks is a pretty good testament to how persuasive he can be. One time, when they’d been in freshman year of college, Seongwoo had drunk-challenged Jaehwan to write a song about cockroaches and he’d _done it_.

Yeah, Jaehwan is poetic. But not when it comes to pretty boys, and especially not when it comes to _Sewoon_ , because every time Jaehwan had considered talking to him he’d completely lost track of anything relevant he could say. 

When Jaehwan crushes, he crushes _hard_ and for a long time—he’s never been the type of person who falls out of love easily, but he sure does fall in love at the drop of a hat. He’d never had a crush on any of his bandmates, thank god, although he had thought Daniel was cute for a while until he found out he had two cats and immediately lost interest. 

Contrary to what everyone thought, Jaehwan _did_ know what piano boy’s name was. He’d known since the first time he met him. But when Daniel had asked him who the guy was that he was always hanging around the classical department for, he’d been too embarrassed to give him a name. So he’d said “I don’t know, all I know is he plays piano.”

 _Piano boy_ suited Sewoon, anyway, Jaehwan thinks, taking a sip of his coffee as he plays back the song the band had just finished recording on his laptop. He’s sitting in the shitty coffee shop right across from the university creatively named Insomnia Café, frequented by nobody but musicians because nobody genuinely liked this place—it was just cheap and close and that was all that mattered.

Well, Jaehwan liked it—but that was just because of the occasional barista. 

Sewoon wasn’t on his shift right now—Jaehwan wasn’t some creeper who’d memorized what shifts he had, he just didn’t complain when he happened to walk in while the other boy was working. But, as always, Jaehwan was thinking about him, as was the life of a dropout—he supposes, he had to find _something_ to keep him inspired, and telemarketing was a decisively uninspiring career.

Insomnia Café was extremely badly lit, and often had a weird musty smell, and the coffee wasn’t exactly _good quality_. And they didn’t use any milk other than full fat, which meant Jaehwan literally could drink nothing without having symptoms of _my body can’t digest lactose_ , but in true Kim Jaehwan fashion continued to do so. Partly so he could ogle Sewoon; mostly just out of spite for his own digestive system. 

He plays the song back again, trying to make note of places to improve—could Sungwoon really play that guitar solo live? Could the band handle all the backing vocals the song required? Was Jaehwan even capable of sustaining his falsetto for that long live? Worried, with his eyebrows furrowed, he plays it back again, increasing the volume so he could hear better, trying to distinguish what was necessary and what the song could do without. Jaehwan may have dropped out of university, but he knew his stuff. At least, when it came to music.

When it came to literally anything else, he had no clue.

He looks up at some point during the song, dragging his eyes away from the laptop screen as he was beginning to feel a migraine developing behind them. At some point while he was preoccupied, Sewoon had started his shift—he was making drinks now, chatting with another barista while he did so. 

Something that had, admittedly, struck Jaehwan about Sewoon was how he was quietly confident, how he seemed both mindful of other people and completely comfortable within his own skin. He opens up the notes app on his laptop to write that down, suddenly inspired, making a mental note to write a song around it once he finished nitpicking this one.

Shaking his head, he returns his head to the laptop screen, looping the track back to the start and listening again. He knows if any of the other guys were there, they’d tell Jaehwan he was overthinking it, but he wanted this to be perfect. Perhaps this would be _it_ ; this would be the one song that catapulted Snakey and the Snakes to stardom.

Or perhaps Jaehwan had delved into wishful thinking again. Perhaps they’d never find _it_. Perhaps his parents were right, and Jaehwan just…wasn’t good enough.

He’s roused out of his thoughts when someone taps him on the shoulder, and he realizes with regret that he’d disassociated two-thirds of the way through the song. He pauses the track and looks up, only to find himself staring at _him_. Piano boy _himself_.

“Oh,” he says. “Hi?”

Sewoon nods at him. “Jaehwan, right?” he asks.

“You know my name?” Jaehwan blurts out, which he supposes is a stupid thing to say because he already knew this. (Sewoon had stopped asking for his name when he came in for coffee recently. His cups still somehow ended up having his name on them regardless.) 

“You’re in here all the time,” Sewoon says. He lowers his voice. “I didn’t think anyone liked Insomnia Café that much.”

 _I don’t_ , Jaehwan wants to answer. _I just like you._ But his throat closes up, as it always seems to do when he’s around Sewoon, and he just laughs instead. 

“Anyway,” Sewoon says. “I just wanted to tell you, some of the people here have complained that your music is too loud.”

“Oh,” Jaehwan says. He supposes he should’ve predicted this, since it was on full volume and Jaehwan was still using the shitty headphones he’d meant to replace that actually were barely considered headphones since anyone in a ten meter radius could hear what he was listening to. “Sorry.” And then, before he can stop himself from oversharing, adds, “I’m listening to this over and over again because me and my band want to upload it online and—”

Sewoon’s eyes widen. Or at least, Jaehwan thinks they do, but that might just be wishful thinking. “You’re in a band?” he asks. He glances around slightly, and adds, “I have to get back to my shift, but…I finish at five, if you want to continue this conversation somewhere else?”

He’s walked away before Jaehwan, dumbfounded, can respond. His throat goes dry, but he starts grinning as soon as Sewoon has turned away from him and back to his drinks.

 

_**jaehwan:** I HAVE GREAT NEWS GUYS PLEASE ANSWER ITS VERY GOOD NEWS  
 **jaehwan:** PLEASE GIVE ME ATTENTION  
 **jaehwan:** THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO ME_

_**seongwoo:** wwhat do uu wan t _

_**daniel:** spill_

_**sungwoon:** if its anything other than u finally growing a pair and talking to piano boy i don’t wanna know   
**sungwoon:** since i know its definitely not that  
 **sungwoon:** then i don’t want to know_

_**jaehwan:** PIANO BOY TALKED TO ///ME///  
 **jaehwan:** HE WAS TALKING TO ME N THEN HE HAD TO GET BACK TO HIS SHIFT SO HE SAID   
**jaehwan:** “I FINISH AT 5 IF U WANNA CONTINUE THIS CONVERSATION SOMEWHERE ELSE”_

_**seongwoo:** wwo w  
 **seongwoo:** thta’s practcally a date_

_**daniel:** wow congrats jaehwan i always had faith in u   
**daniel:** wait why’s seongwoo typing like that _

_**seongwoo:** Sorry, Seongwoo’s occupied right now  
 **seongwoo:** But congrats, Jaehwan! (≡^∇^≡)_

_**sungwoon:** WAS THAT MINHYUN  
 **sungwoon:** ONG U FREAK ITS TWO IN THE AFTERNOON_

_**jaehwan:** ONG STOP   
**jaehwan:** STEALING MY THUNDER  
 **jaehwan:** ALL THE TIME_

 

Jaehwan’s crush on Sewoon had started a couple weeks before he dropped out, at one of the many parties held at the university.

The people there were from all branches of the university, not just the musical branch—after all, it was an arts university. And normally, Jaehwan would be happily tipsy right now—not drunk enough to do something ridiculous, but drunk enough to not have as many inhibitions as he normally did. 

But the four of them—him, and the other three guys he’d developed a kinship with over the last six months—had agreed that one of them had to be sober. Not because they needed a driver as much as because they needed someone to make sure Seongwoo didn’t get in a fight with his roommate, or…well, actually, that was about it. 

Normally, that was Sungwoon, because Sungwoon didn’t care for drinking and was fairly responsible—or at least, compared to the rest of them. But Sungwoon’s on/off relationship with some dance major (Taehyung? Taehyun? What the fuck, it wasn’t like Jaehwan cared) was currently in the _off_ section, possibly for good although that was what Sungwoon always said, and thus he had decided to get _utterly trashed_ , in his own words. 

So it had come down to rock-paper-scissors, and Jaehwan had lost, so he had to get through this gathering of crazy college arts majors _completely sober_. Arts majors were bad enough to deal with _drunk_ , and he’d lost all three of his friends, so here he was in the kitchen of the house of the fraternity hosting the party, arms crossed, enjoying that at least there was air conditioning in the kitchen.

The door opened, and Jaehwan rolled his eyes, wondering who the hell it was. He’d already had to shove out a couple, a guy and a girl, who were so glued to each other’s lips that they hadn’t even been aware that Jaehwan was there. (Jaehwan had put up with it until they started to look like they were going to start fucking right there in the kitchen, and then he’d put his foot down.)

To his relief, it wasn’t a couple. It was a guy, nobody that Jaehwan knew but someone Jaehwan could _definitely_ appreciate the face of, if nothing else. “Oh, sorry,” the guy says, giggling slightly, and Jaehwan supposes the guy is drunk but—he hopes—not to the point where he was insufferable. “Do you want me to leave?”

“It’s alright,” Jaehwan replies, although it isn’t alright and he really does want his privacy. “I’m just staying away from the party, because I’m staying sober tonight.”

“Designated driver?” the guy asks. 

“Kinda,” Jaehwan says, but doesn’t elaborate. (He’s doing a terrible job at what he’s supposed to be doing, anyway. Seongwoo could be beating his roommate up right now and Jaehwan would have no idea.) “I’m Kim Jaehwan, by the way. I’m in contemporary.”

“Jeong Sewoon,” the guy replies. “And I’m in classical, so I guess we have to hate each other now.” He giggles heartily, definitely tipsy at the very least, and Jaehwan is ridiculously annoyed by it. (No he’s not. He’s actually very endeared.) “I play piano.”

“Huh,” Jaehwan says. “I know piano. I learned when I was younger. But I can’t imagine specializing in it.”

“Yeah,” Sewoon says. He laughs again. “I guess that means you have _symphony_ with me, huh?” 

The joke sucked, objectively. So Jaehwan doesn’t know why he’s smiling from cheek to cheek. Maybe he’s tipsy by osmosis. “That joke sucked.”

“Did it strike a _chord_?” Sewoon asks. 

“Stop,” Jaehwan says. (His smile widens.) “That’s awful. Please stop making bad music jokes.”

Sewoon laughs so hard his whole body laughs with him. “They’re amazing,” he insists. “You’re just jealous your sense of humour has to _be flat_.” 

Jaehwan shakes his head. “You’re pretty drunk, Sewoon,” he says. 

“Not drunk enough,” Sewoon says, shaking his head, looking regretful all of a sudden. 

“Drunk enough for what?” Jaehwan asks, amused and maybe, just maybe, a tiny bit endeared. 

Sewoon shrugs. “To do whatever,” he answers vaguely. “Like. Say I’m talking to a guy, and we’re in the…the kitchen, right? And he’s really cute, and we probably won’t have to talk again since we aren’t in the same department, and I kind of want to kiss him, but I don’t. Because I’m not drunk enough.

Jaehwan’s heart skips a beat. “Oh.”

“You get it, right?” Sewoon asks. He takes a step forward, as if to make the distance between them smaller, as if to make it easier to lean forward and—

“I get it,” Jaehwan says quickly. Because he does get it. He wants to step forward, to make there be no distance between them, to kiss this boy who probably won’t remember him tomorrow. But Kim Jaehwan may be a useless leech, but he is also a gentleman, so he adds, “I’m not kissing a drunk guy. That would be, like, morally wrong.”

Sewoon hums. “Oh well,” he says. “How about this, then? Monday, when we have class again, find me and talk to me. And we’ll continue this conversation then, huh?” 

“Right,” Jaehwan says. 

Sewoon makes his way to the door. “See you Monday, then, Jaehwan.”

(Jaehwan never does talk to Sewoon. When he passes him in the corridor the next week, and the week after that, and all the other weeks that led into months that led into years, Sewoon never seems to remember him. They never do continue the conversation.)

 

_**sungwoon:** man im so proud of jaehwannie…  
 **sungwoon:** the last two years of awkwardly hanging around the classics department sure paid off, huh_

_**daniel:** do you know his name yet?_

_**seongwoo:** i second wanting to know  
 **seongwoo:** so does minhyun_

_**jaehwan:** you WILL find out  
 **jaehwan:** just not right now  
 **jaehwan:** now shut up bc i’m about to meet up with him_

 

Jaehwan hadn’t _waited_ in Insomnia Café. He’d finished with his nitpicking, and sent the updated file to the guys, and then he’d packed his laptop away and gone home and snuck upstairs to put it away quietly so his dad wouldn’t see him and go on about how much time he wasted in his useless life. 

Then he’d gone for a walk around this part of the city, spent some time in the music shop he liked imagining the dream future where he had enough money to buy a better guitar, and before he could stop himself, buying a small bouquet of flowers. Because perhaps Sewoon would say later this wasn’t a date, but Jaehwan also just really liked flowers. 

_Then_ he makes his way back to the Insomnia Café, walking in at six minutes past five. Sewoon was sitting down at a table by the door, not eating or drinking anything, looking as if he was waiting for someone. Jaehwan supposes he’s waiting for him, and that makes his heartbeat race. “Hi,” he says. 

“Who are the flowers for?” Sewoon asks.

Jaehwan flushes. “I don’t know,” he admits. “They were kind of an impulse buy.”

Sewoon smiles at him. “Can I pretend that they’re for me, then?”

Jaehwan’s heart skips a beat. “If you want,” he says. “They’re yours.” 

Sewoon grins. “Thank you,” he says. “It was really sweet of you to get me flowers, Jaehwan.” He stands up from his chair, pushing it under the table. “I take it you don’t particularly want to continue this date here, though, do you?”

Jaehwan blushes. “Is this a date?”

“I was kind of hoping so,” Sewoon says. “Do you even know my name?”

Jaehwan flushes an even deeper colour. “Sewoon,” he says. And then, quickly, adds, “It’s on your apron.”

Sewoon laughs, pushing open the door and holding it for Jaehwan. The cool February evening air hits Jaehwan’s face as soon as he leaves the warmth of the coffee shop—for all its problems, at least it had good central heating. They make their way down the street, Sewoon to Jaehwan’s left. “And you’ve paid attention to my apron?”

Jaehwan shrugs. “I’ve paid attention to _you_ ,” he admits.

Sewoon looks away from him and to the sidewalk, holding the bouquet in his right hand. “I have, as well,” he replies. “So it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” He adds, “Have you eaten anything much today? I know this really good Italian place around here.”

Jaehwan shakes his head. “I haven’t. So, are you going to lead the way there?”

Sewoon grins at him. “So I was hoping.”

The place is on a side street, and just from the outside it looks cozy. It’s only a small place, but the lighting is warm and when Jaehwan steps inside he discovers the decoration is as well. The tables are covered in red checkered tablecloths, and the waiter, definitely Italian himself, directs them to a booth, under a framed picture of some quintessential-looking 1950s actress and a brightly-coloured vintage tourism poster. 

Sewoon catches his eye looking around at all the decorations. “The guy who owns this place must be the most patriotic Italian ever,” he says. “But I have a friend who says this is the most authentic Italian food you can get in the whole city.”

“Is the owner Italian?” Jaehwan asks.

“I would assume so,” Sewoon says, signalling the waiter. “Unless the owner is to Italy what Koreaboos are to Korea.”

“Itali-boo,” Jaehwan says, laughing at the way it sounds. 

Sewoon laughs too. “What do you want to order?”

Jaehwan shrugs. “I’ve never been here before,” he says. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

So they order, and Jaehwan listens to Sewoon talk about how he specialized in piano but what he really wanted was to be a singer. “What about you?” he asks. “You’re in a band, didn’t you say?”

“Yeah,” Jaehwan says. “Snakey and the Snakes. I’m the singer.”

“I’ve seen you guys play before, then,” Sewoon says, smiling at him, and Jaehwan flushes immediately because _oh_ , Sewoon has seen them play before. “I don’t remember where, but you were pretty good and you covered _Skyfall_.”

“Yeah,” Jaehwan says. “I’m glad you liked us. Really.”

Sewoon smiles. “Hey, Jaehwan,” he says. “A root, a third, and a perfect fifth walk into a bar, and the bartender says, _we don’t serve minors_.”

Jaehwan bursts out laughing—not because the joke is particularly funny, but because Sewoon looks so satisfied with it. “Your music puns have improved,” he says before he can stop himself.

Sewoon frowns at him. “Where have you heard my music puns before?” he asks.

Jaehwan bites his lip. “A couple years ago, I was at a party,” he says. “And you walked in, pretty drunk, and just told me music puns and I was just hoping you’d stop because they were _so bad_.” He blushes. “And then—”

“And then, I told you I wanted to kiss you,” Sewoon completes. “And then the guy I was talking to, who was apparently you, said—”

“I’m not kissing a drunk guy,” Jaehwan says. “I remember.”

“I remembered, too,” Sewoon says. “Well, I remembered the event, but not the guy.” He crosses his arms. “I was hoping you’d come to find me.”

Jaehwan flushes. “I meant to,” he says. “I was hoping you’d recognize me, but you never did, and I never had the guts to ask you.”

“Am I that attractive?” Sewoon asks.

Jaehwan flushes deeper. “Yeah,” he admits.

Sewoon laughs. Then he leans forward, and Jaehwan holds his breath—which is when the waiter arrives with the food they’d ordered, and Sewoon returns to his seat. The waiter gave them both knowing looks, placing the two plates of pasta on the table.

“My friends in the band made fun of me,” Jaehwan admits after a couple minutes of eating. “Because they figured out I liked a classicist because I spent so much time hanging around there, even after I dropped out, but I didn’t want them to know who you were, so I told them I didn’t know your name, just that you played piano.”

Sewoon shakes his head. “I’ve always thought you were cute,” he says. “And then I thought, what the hell, why does this guy spend so much time in one of the worst coffee shops in the city, so I suppose that interested me.”

“I’m going to war against my digestive system,” Jaehwan says. “Because I’m spiteful at its lack of lactase.”

“Oh,” Sewoon says. “And here was me hoping it was because you liked me.”

Jaehwan looks down at his food. “That was part of it, as well.”

 

_**jaehwan:** ok i’m back  
 **jaehwan:** and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA_

_**daniel:** spill_

_**sungwoon:** spill (2)_

_**seongwoo:** spill (3)_

_**jaehwan:** SO WE WENT TO THIS RESTAURANT  
 **jaehwan:** AND WE WERE GONNA JUST. HAVE DINNER. BUT WE WERE THERE FOR LIKE TWO HOURS  
 **jaehwan:** AND THEN WHEN WE FINALLY PAID HE ASKED ME TO WALK WITH HIM BACK TO HIS DORM SO I DID  
 **jaehwan:** AND THEN_

_**seongwoo:** the suspense is killing me_

_**jaehwan:** WHEN WE GOT THERE HE WAS LIKE  
 **jaehwan:** “CAN I PUT MY NUMBER IN YOUR PHONE”  
 **jaehwan:** SO HE DID  
 **jaehwan:** N THEN HE WAS LIKE TEXT ME SO WE CAN GO OUT AGAIN SOME OTHER TIME  
 **jaehwan:** AND ////THEN//// HE KISSED ME ON THE CHEEK_

_**seongwoo:** yes jaehwan  
 **seongwoo:** get that piano dick_

_**daniel:** this is peak romance_

_**sungwoon:** i’m so proud of u jaehwan_

[3 hours later]

_**sungwoon:** wait, so are we ever going to get a name?_

**Author's Note:**

> a couple notes: insomnia cafe is a real irish cafe chain and it's actually quite nice, so if the ceo is reading this then i'm sorry please don't sue me
> 
> [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuGfrKcAUtU) is the full rock arrangement of jaehwan's skyfall cover, in case anyone was curious.
> 
> finally [here](https://twitter.com/loona_officiaI) is my twitter!


End file.
